4 ms·

Ask HN: Tech books every developer must read

37 points by DeathArrow 4y ago

What are some technical books that changed the way you think, brought you to a much better understanding of an idea or you think are quintessential for every software developer? I am trying to find some books to help me improve.

qualudeheart 4y ago
C++ Standard
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
max_hammer 4y ago
- The Pragmatic programmer
zach_garwood 4y ago
The Mythical Man Month helped me understand how I, as an individual, fit into a larger organization.
zellster 4y ago
Domain Modeling Made Functional by Scott Wlaschin Property-Based Testing with PropEr, Erlang, and Elixir by Fred Herbert Hacker's Delight by Henry Warren Programming Pearls by Jon Bentley
__rito__ 4y ago
At least the first five chapters of "The Little Schemer" should be read by every developer.
animitronix 4y ago
Domain-Driven Design by Eric Evans
- tkiolp4 4y ago
  Only because he’s the “inventor” of DDD. The book (the “blue” book) is awful. The “red” one is 10x better.
  - dev_0 4y ago
uncanny 4y ago
Programming Pearls by Jon Bentley
david_allison 4y ago
Working Effectively with Legacy Code by Michael Feathers
- zach_garwood 4y ago
  I forgot about this one! I hoghly recommend it for anyone that has inherited a dilapidated codebase.
partomniscient 4y ago
Finding other people that are trying to solve the same problem as you always helps. Probably some mentioned here perhaps: 'Programmer': https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=books%20programmer%20read&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... 'Developer': https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=books%20developer%20read&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... 'Software Engineer': https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=books%20software%20engineer%20read&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... Feel free to adjust the date range for recency. When I was young, it took me a while to learn that 'newer' did not necessarily mean 'better', but also note that a lot of initially 'great' books didn't age well.
hayst4ck 4y ago
http://misko.hevery.com/code-reviewers-guide/ http://misko.hevery.com/code-reviewers-guide/ This is the highest value to time spent read that you will ever experience for programming. If you read through the rest of the guy's justification for these points (by clicking the headings and then if you want more trawling through older blog posts) you will start to see the matrix. You might have taken a class that said "high coupling in your software is bad," but it's an entirely different experience to see the common patterns that result in high coupling (or the violation of scopes via accessing global state etc) and pragmatic ways to re-write them. Making programs a recursive 2 steps per object life time (lifetime of server, lifetime of request, etc): 1. Draw the object graph by instantiating objects of the current lifetime and giving them references to eachother 2. Call run(), which executes the object graph Felt like an epiphany to me.
ineedausername 4y ago
Learn You a Haskell for Great Good! http://learnyouahaskell.com/ http://learnyouahaskell.com/
bwh2 4y ago
I have a big list on my website at https://www.briansnotes.io/books/ https://www.briansnotes.io/books/ but here are a few: * The DevOps Handbook - Lots of tactics for improving the productivity and effectiveness of engineering teams * Extreme Programming Explained - Solid guide to agile ideas * Staff Engineer and The Manager's Path - Helps you understand your career path and the expectations that come with positions like Tech Lead, Staff Engineer, Engineering Manager, etc.
boredmgr 4y ago
A Github repo which talks exactly about this https://github.com/cs-books/influential-cs-books https://github.com/cs-books/influential-cs-books and related stackoverflow thread : https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1711/what-is-the-single-most-influential-book-every-programmer-should-read https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1711/what-is-the-single-...
ozzythecat 4y ago
Good to understand what came before and how computing has evolved. I really recommend “The Innovators” by Walter Isaacson.

37 points by DeathArrow 4y ago

qualudeheart 4y ago

C++ Standard

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

max_hammer 4y ago

- The Pragmatic programmer

zach_garwood 4y ago

The Mythical Man Month helped me understand how I, as an individual, fit into a larger organization.

zellster 4y ago

Domain Modeling Made Functional by Scott Wlaschin Property-Based Testing with PropEr, Erlang, and Elixir by Fred Herbert Hacker's Delight by Henry Warren Programming Pearls by Jon Bentley

__rito__ 4y ago

At least the first five chapters of "The Little Schemer" should be read by every developer.

animitronix 4y ago

Domain-Driven Design by Eric Evans

tkiolp4 4y ago
Only because he’s the “inventor” of DDD. The book (the “blue” book) is awful. The “red” one is 10x better.
- dev_0 4y ago

uncanny 4y ago

Programming Pearls by Jon Bentley

david_allison 4y ago

Working Effectively with Legacy Code by Michael Feathers

zach_garwood 4y ago
I forgot about this one! I hoghly recommend it for anyone that has inherited a dilapidated codebase.

partomniscient 4y ago

Finding other people that are trying to solve the same problem as you always helps. Probably some mentioned here perhaps: 'Programmer': https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=books%20programmer%20read&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... 'Developer': https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=books%20developer%20read&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... 'Software Engineer': https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=books%20software%20engineer%20read&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... Feel free to adjust the date range for recency. When I was young, it took me a while to learn that 'newer' did not necessarily mean 'better', but also note that a lot of initially 'great' books didn't age well.

hayst4ck 4y ago

http://misko.hevery.com/code-reviewers-guide/ http://misko.hevery.com/code-reviewers-guide/ This is the highest value to time spent read that you will ever experience for programming. If you read through the rest of the guy's justification for these points (by clicking the headings and then if you want more trawling through older blog posts) you will start to see the matrix. You might have taken a class that said "high coupling in your software is bad," but it's an entirely different experience to see the common patterns that result in high coupling (or the violation of scopes via accessing global state etc) and pragmatic ways to re-write them. Making programs a recursive 2 steps per object life time (lifetime of server, lifetime of request, etc): 1. Draw the object graph by instantiating objects of the current lifetime and giving them references to eachother 2. Call run(), which executes the object graph Felt like an epiphany to me.

ineedausername 4y ago

Learn You a Haskell for Great Good! http://learnyouahaskell.com/ http://learnyouahaskell.com/

bwh2 4y ago

I have a big list on my website at https://www.briansnotes.io/books/ https://www.briansnotes.io/books/ but here are a few: * The DevOps Handbook - Lots of tactics for improving the productivity and effectiveness of engineering teams * Extreme Programming Explained - Solid guide to agile ideas * Staff Engineer and The Manager's Path - Helps you understand your career path and the expectations that come with positions like Tech Lead, Staff Engineer, Engineering Manager, etc.

boredmgr 4y ago

A Github repo which talks exactly about this https://github.com/cs-books/influential-cs-books https://github.com/cs-books/influential-cs-books and related stackoverflow thread : https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1711/what-is-the-single-most-influential-book-every-programmer-should-read https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1711/what-is-the-single-...

ozzythecat 4y ago

Good to understand what came before and how computing has evolved. I really recommend “The Innovators” by Walter Isaacson.